Document redaction is probably the biggest standout feature in this release.

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An Ubuntu Xenial LTS system, showing the system base version of LibreOffice (5.1.6) as well as the newly snap-installed 6.3.0.

Jim Salter

Installing the LibreOffice snap from the command line, in Ubuntu Xenial LTS.

Jim Salter

Installing the Snap Store, in Ubuntu Xenial. Once installed, the Snap Store gives you a graphical interface to discover and manage snap-packaged applications.

Jim Salter

Searching for Libreoffice in the Snap Store, on an Ubuntu Xenial LTS workstation.

Jim Salter

The open source office suite LibreOffice released its version 6.3.0 last week. This was a major release that added many new features, as well as interoperability enhancements (read: better import and export of Microsoft Office documents) and performance increases. LibreOffice 6.3.0 is a "fresh" (not long-term support) release that may be downloaded directly—or, if you're a Linux user, you might choose to install it from the Snap Store instead. Ubuntu (and probably most Linux users) will get a separate installation of LibreOffice 6.3.0 regardless of whether users install natively from download or install from snaps; Windows users who download the new version will have their existing LibreOffice version (if any) completely replaced upon installation.

The release notes for 6.3.0 boast of several performance improvements related to loading and saving documents in Writer and Calc. We were able to confirm these performance improvements—but only when installing LibreOffice natively. When we tested LibreOffice 6.3.0 installed from the Snap Store, performance was fine when actually inside the app and working on a document. But application launch times were significantly slower.

Document redaction

LibreOffice 6.3.0 offers several entirely new features—such as a FOURIER() function in its spreadsheet app Calc—but the new document redaction tools (which are available across the entire suite of apps) are probably the biggest standout. For the uninitiated, "redaction" refers to the black bars you see across sensitive passages in documents that are only intended to be partially released, and getting redaction wrong can lead to extremely serious consequences. Having a purpose-designed tool to help people get the job done right is a good thing—but unfortunately, there are still some obvious rough spots in LibreOffice's redaction tool.

First, click the global Tools menu, then Redact to spawn a new redaction window.

Jim Salter

Redact spawns a new Draw instance of your flattened document, with a simplified toolset for scribbling over the bits you don't want to reveal.

Jim Salter

We've drawn a redaction box around a line in our document. The PROPER way to save it is Redacted Export->Redacted Export(Black)... not that inviting "Export Directly as PDF" button next to it.

Jim Salter

If you mess up and click that inviting "direct to PDF" button in the Redaction window, you're going to end up exposing a lot more than you wanted to.

Jim Salter

At first blush, the update is pretty simple: when you select Tools⟶Redact, a Draw window opens up with your flattened document in it. So does a simplified toolset allowing you to draw boxes or scribble over content you don't want to expose. When you're done, you can export the redacted version of a document; this produces a completely flattened PDF, such as you'd expect to get when scanning a paper document to PDF from an office copier. There are no hidden text elements to be sleuthed out by pesky journalists.

The default transparency of redaction boxes and scribbles is set to 50%, which conveniently allows you to see exactly what you've redacted. The big pitfall here is the inviting little "direct PDF export" button on the redaction toolbox—because it produces a PDF that looks just like the one on the screen, with all the "redacted" parts clearly visible.

The correct way to export a redacted copy of your document is the less-inviting export button to its left. That button drops down a menu allowing you to select either solid white or solid black redaction anywhere you've drawn or scribbled using the redaction tools. All this is easy enough, and it's much simpler than trying to redact a document without any special tools—but I suspect we're still likely to see somebody bobbling this in the real world if that "direct to PDF" button doesn't at least get a more informative tooltip soon.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

OpenOffice, which the project it forked off may still have a more recognized name, though due to how that was being managed almost all developers went to the LibreOffice branch.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

Microsoft Office runs many, many palettes down the side in the exact same way and the ribbon is collapsible.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

as well as interoperability enhancements (read: better import and export of Microsoft Office documents)

This is actually the point that excites me the most. For work I occasionally have to use and fill information into older .doc files, and both Google Docs and LibreOffice ruin the formatting. Word 365 (or whatever the online version of MS Office is) can't use them without converting to docx and even doing *that* with Microsoft's own software messes it up (though not as badly as the others). My current solution is to use a Windows virtual machine with an offline version of MS Word which is capable of working with these files without breaking them.

If LibreOffice will now be able to work with these files directly without throwing the formatting off, I will be thrilled. Though I'm not holding my breath, this not being the first time LO has improved Office compatibility with no visible changes for my needs.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

It beggars my belief that we're still arguing about this 12 years after its introduction.

I understand that it's not to some people's taste - but it was brought in deliberately to more flexibly expose more functionality than the old menus could. If you collapse it and then treat it as a horizontal menu then it's barely any different. My one issue is the way that it collapses when not full screen - some things can become less than obvious at this point if you're used to the full width and don't use key shortcuts.

But some people still get emotional and make statements about it that are demonstrably not true and that's amazing.

Interestingly, if you're on O365 Look Ahead Microsoft are trying a radically simplified Ribbon in Outlook that's much closer to the online ribbon - which is almost them saying, well we've tried, but most people don't actually use all the stuff we've shoved into the new dangling menu.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

That's a crazy thing to say and not true given you can literally create your own ribbon tabs customised with the buttons you want.

The vast majority of time MS bend over backwards to accommodate different workflows. That one workflow to rule them all accusation can be much more accurately pointed at other IT companies.

What’s wrong with going through (with “Track Changes” off, obviously) deleting what you need to delete, replacing it with [redacted then saving as pdf? Doing it that way also doesn’t let the people reviewing the redacted document see how much text has been elided.

That's a bug, not a feature. Once the same non-redacted content appears on page 83 of the redacted version and page 86 of the full version, it becomes a citation and document management nightmare internally.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

I truly hate the MS Office ribbon and associated UI. There are too many buried features that are not grouped in ways that are easy to remember. The ribbon is highly customizable but as far as utility it drives me up the wall. It seems like they threw their power users under the bus so as to make it much simpler for basic / untrained users. I don't see, given how much they make on the product that they couldn't staircase the product complexity as the user grows in ability and knowledge.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

As far as I'm aware they are far from hostile to people wanting to create new UIs. They just aren't interested in supporting them within the LibreOffice project at this time.

But if you want to get your own UI/UX team together and create something new then there's nothing stopping you from using the LibreOffice source code to do that. If you demonstrate the clear superiority of your new UI then getting it merged upstream will be far easier.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

It beggars my belief that we're still arguing about this 12 years after its introduction.

I understand that it's not to some people's taste - but it was brought in deliberately to more flexibly expose more functionality than the old menus could. If you collapse it and then treat it as a horizontal menu then it's barely any different. My one issue is the way that it collapses when not full screen - some things can become less than obvious at this point if you're used to the full width and don't use key shortcuts.

But some people still get emotional and make statements about it that are demonstrably not true and that's amazing.

Interestingly, if you're on O365 Look Ahead Microsoft are trying a radically simplified Ribbon in Outlook that's much closer to the online ribbon - which is almost them saying, well we've tried, but most people don't actually use all the stuff we've shoved into the new dangling menu.

edit: stray apostrophe

Well I don't have time right now to search for that old article, but when the ribbon was first introduced there was an article explaining as to how it came to being. It wasn't simply Microsoft deciding they want to redesign the UI for no reason. That's my point.

And at least in my opinion I liked the new design. I have never used Office 365 so I wouldn't know their new UI.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

Like a lot of people I rarely use Office applications, and even when working didn't use them more than a few hours a week, and that mostly spreadsheets.I don't want redesigned UIs. I don't want steering wheels replaced by thumb controls. I don't even want English replaced by French even though French is more logical and has a better defined vocabulary.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

Like a lot of people I rarely use Office applications, and even when working didn't use them more than a few hours a week, and that mostly spreadsheets.I don't want redesigned UIs. I don't want steering wheels replaced by thumb controls. I don't even want English replaced by French even though French is more logical and has a better defined vocabulary.

Office's UI hasn't had huge changes since the introduction of the ribbon in 2007. That's as far from today as Office 2007 is from Office 95. The ribbon isn't the redesigned UI anymore. It's the standard. The LibreOffice UI is anachronistic.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

Like a lot of people I rarely use Office applications, and even when working didn't use them more than a few hours a week, and that mostly spreadsheets.I don't want redesigned UIs. I don't want steering wheels replaced by thumb controls. I don't even want English replaced by French even though French is more logical and has a better defined vocabulary.

Office's UI hasn't had huge changes since the introduction of the ribbon in 2007. That's as far from today as Office 2007 is from Office 95. The ribbon isn't the redesigned UI anymore. It's the standard. The LibreOffice UI is anachronistic.

So is ClassicShell, yet millions of people use it because the old interfaces were generally better.

Considering just Windows, am I the only one to use Office 2003 (Word/Excel) and be happy with it. Last year when checked LibreOffice was still not to it's level. Never could get used to Office 2007 ribbons and from feature side (that I actually care for), its not worth the update.

What’s wrong with going through (with “Track Changes” off, obviously) deleting what you need to delete, replacing it with [redacted then saving as pdf? Doing it that way also doesn’t let the people reviewing the redacted document see how much text has been elided.

Yeah, scanned pdfs are more of a pain. But I’ve always found that running the text conversion tool then editing directly works fine.

What you suggest would be a royal pain for the owner of a master document who needs to update it weekly (or monthly) and do a fresh export and release. The owner of the document needs to be able to see the text of the proposed redactions and not have to re-create them next week. Some boilerplate documents, especially in legal work, could have dozens of redactions.

We use Microsoft products exclusively here. But, I once had someone send me a Word doc that somehow got corrupted. They asked me if there was any way I could get the document recovered. Word wouldn't open it. I tried opening it in Open Office and... it opened. Saved it again as a Word document and sent it back to them. I was their hero for the day.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

That's a crazy thing to say and not true given you can literally create your own ribbon tabs customised with the buttons you want.

The vast majority of time MS bend over backwards to accommodate different workflows. That one workflow to rule them all accusation can be much more accurately pointed at other IT companies.

Even if you manage to get ribbon to hold all the functions you need ( a big if and a lot of work) there is still the fact that it eats up valuable vertical space instead of tons and tons of horizontal space that we have on our screens.

What you suggest would be a royal pain for the owner of a master document who needs to update it weekly (or monthly) and do a fresh export and release. The owner of the document needs to be able to see the text of the proposed redactions and not have to re-create them next week. Some boilerplate documents, especially in legal work, could have dozens of redactions.

I'm chuckling at the idea of the inevitable Congressional hearings:"Mr. G-man, on page 345 of the Big Report, when you wrote (unredacted thing), why did you phrase it in (political nuance)?""I beg your pardon, Mrs. Representativeperson, is that page 345 of the redacted or unredacted document?"

What’s wrong with going through (with “Track Changes” off, obviously) deleting what you need to delete, replacing it with [redacted then saving as pdf? Doing it that way also doesn’t let the people reviewing the redacted document see how much text has been elided.

Yeah, scanned pdfs are more of a pain. But I’ve always found that running the text conversion tool then editing directly works fine.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

That's a crazy thing to say and not true given you can literally create your own ribbon tabs customised with the buttons you want.

The vast majority of time MS bend over backwards to accommodate different workflows. That one workflow to rule them all accusation can be much more accurately pointed at other IT companies.

Even if you manage to get ribbon to hold all the functions you need ( a big if and a lot of work) there is still the fact that it eats up valuable vertical space instead of tons and tons of horizontal space that we have on our screens.

Thanks for articles like this. I am usually interested in LibreOffice as some day I hope to leave MS Office but I can rarely find any news articles about it so I’m left unsure if it is still under active development and change.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

That's a crazy thing to say and not true given you can literally create your own ribbon tabs customised with the buttons you want.

The vast majority of time MS bend over backwards to accommodate different workflows. That one workflow to rule them all accusation can be much more accurately pointed at other IT companies.

Even if you manage to get ribbon to hold all the functions you need ( a big if and a lot of work) there is still the fact that it eats up valuable vertical space instead of tons and tons of horizontal space that we have on our screens.

Then collapse it! it's no different then to a traditional menu.

Then it's not available for use. Toolbars along the sides are always there and are not context sensitive (so everything stays in the same place). It's a far better solution than different ribbon hacks.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

I hate the ribbon interface. All the features I used to access in a couple of clicks suddenly were hidden among a sea of options. I prefer the old office menus. I could also easily navigate them using just the keys on the keyboard which could be really fast.

Thanks for articles like this. I am usually interested in LibreOffice as some day I hope to leave MS Office but I can rarely find any news articles about it so I’m left unsure if it is still under active development and change.

I ditched MS office years ago. I use Libre Office and Google Docs. They are perfectly good for pretty much anything I need to do.

It is better experience as long as you have the exact same work flow as MS did when they designed it. As soon as it differs you end up switching constantly between different ribbon tabs. It's annoying as hell to deal with and having configurable toolbars is far better choice for optimising the program for the workflow that you have instead of the usual MS approach of "you have wrong workflow".

That's a crazy thing to say and not true given you can literally create your own ribbon tabs customised with the buttons you want.

The vast majority of time MS bend over backwards to accommodate different workflows. That one workflow to rule them all accusation can be much more accurately pointed at other IT companies.

Even if you manage to get ribbon to hold all the functions you need ( a big if and a lot of work) there is still the fact that it eats up valuable vertical space instead of tons and tons of horizontal space that we have on our screens.

Then collapse it! it's no different then to a traditional menu.

Then it's not available for use. Toolbars along the sides are always there and are not context sensitive (so everything stays in the same place). It's a far better solution than different ribbon hacks.

In what way is it not available for use? It's identical to a traditional menu - a thin bar with titles that gets bigger when you click on it. And I'm sitting looking at PowerPoint having the Format Shape side panel detailing all the elements of the object I've clicked on.

I'm not that familiar with LibreOffice but from looking at the screenshots, one feature that stands out is the great use of screen space by running palettes down the side of the window. Perfect for widescreen monitors and more usable than the MSOffice ribbon.

I agree for the most part, but I have to say that having both sides surrounded by UI might take away from the immersive writing experience (for me, anyway).

Personally I found the Microsoft Office ribbon UI a better experience, I started to see myself using more of the application's features, working more quickly. Considering that they done quite a few studies simply on the UI of Microsoft Office I am not surprised.

Think whatever you want on Microsoft but one thing you cannot deny is that they do design UIs very well.

Unfortunately, LibreOffice team isn't interested in redesigning their UI or even offering a different design and they are hostile to anyone trying to do the same.

A redesign of the UI is a major undertaking. Half of the users would love it, half would hate it, and the third half would just grump a bit and learn the new UI. Also consider that LO, being community supported, doesn't have a big budget. I think the LO team does a rather remarkable job and produces a fine product.